Factories reopening after Chinese New Year 2027: dates and capacity

According to the Hong Kong Observatory's official 2027 table, the first day of the first lunar month falls on Saturday 6 February 2027. The preceding twelfth lunar month has only 29 days, so New Year's Eve, the evening of the big family reunion dinner, falls on Friday 5 February 2027. The fifteenth day of the first month, the Lantern Festival, falls on Saturday 20 February 2027. Chinese New Year 2027 therefore arrives 11 days earlier than in 2026, when it fell on 17 February.

The official holiday calendar in mainland China is a separate matter. It is set each year by a notice from the General Office of the State Council, with its non-working days and the Saturdays worked in compensation. As of 29 September 2026, the notice for 2027 has not been published: the dates of 4 to 12 February or 5 to 12 February circulating on some sites are projections. The 2026 notice came out on 4 November 2025, which suggests the 2027 one may appear around November 2026, with no guarantee.

In 2026, the official holiday ran from 15 to 23 February, nine days, from the 28th day of the 12th lunar month to the 7th day of the 1st lunar month, with two Saturdays worked in compensation, 14 and 28 February. In other words, the official holiday ends around the seventh lunar day, well before the Lantern Festival. Carried over to 2027, this would place the end of the official holiday around Friday 12 February, to be confirmed by the official notice.

In the factories, the shutdown lasts longer. Some workers leave before the date to avoid the transport rush, and many do not come back until after the Lantern Festival. Maersk's guide for the 2026 New Year, published on 4 November 2025, states that factories scale down production two to three weeks before the holiday, may not regain full capacity until mid-March, and that the logistics effects can last up to six weeks. It is this wider window, not the official holiday, that should set your timeline.

Guangdong, home to many export suppliers, publishes yearly figures on migrant workers returning. In February 2026, its Department of Human Resources and Social Security reported that 81.8% of workers planned to go home for the holiday, and that 94.0% of migrants from other provinces intended to come back to work afterwards. In Dongguan, 76% went home, and 97% planned to return.

The pace of the return is also tracked. In 2025, by the 13th day of the first lunar month, more than 16 million workers from other provinces had returned to Guangdong, 82.9% of those who had left, and more than 90% of the monitored companies had resumed activity. In 2026, estimates reported by the Guangzhou press on 25 February expected around nine workers in ten to be back at their posts in Guangdong before the Lantern Festival.

Nationally, the great New Year migration, the chunyun, had its busiest day in 2026 on the 6th day of the first lunar month, in the middle of the return wave, with 380 million trips in a single day, a record, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. The 2027 chunyun dates are not yet known.

Production data confirms this lag. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 49.0 in February 2026, the month of New Year, and to 44.8 for small businesses. In March 2026, it rose back to 50.4, but the small-business index stayed at 49.3, below the 50 threshold that separates contraction from expansion. Large companies came through the period better, at 51.5 as early as February, while small ones took longer to recover.

For 2027, SEKO Logistics published a projection on 6 August 2026, which we reproduce below, supplemented with official benchmarks. The staffing percentages come from a freight forwarder, not an authority: read them as rough orders of magnitude, to be confirmed factory by factory.

With the turnover of workers, the year's first production runs are often made by people new to the job, and defects that were fixed the previous year tend to reappear.

The response is simple and cheap compared with the risk. First, have a pre-production sample approved before launching the volume, comparing it against the signed reference sample. Second, plan a start-of-production inspection: checking raw materials and the first finished pieces, within the first 20 percent of production, to catch defects, delays and any undeclared subcontracting early. Finally, keep the pre-shipment inspection, which remains the last point at which a defect can be corrected before the goods go to sea.

With full capacity expected around mid-March, an order placed at reopening has little chance of being ready before the end of March. Sea freight from Shanghai to Rotterdam takes around 30 days via Suez and 42 to 45 days via the Cape of Good Hope, the route most major carriers were still using in summer 2026. Goods ready at the end of March 2027 would therefore reach Europe around mid-May if the Cape remains the route. For spring stock, you need to produce before New Year, or accept a late arrival.

In 2026, rates fell before and just after New Year, carriers cancelled sailings to slow the drop, and then the Middle East crisis at the end of February pushed them back up in March. Booking early remains the only safe precaution.

The spring 2027 Canton Fair does not yet have official dates. On the 2026 model, it would run from 15 April to 5 May 2027, in three phases, 54 days after the Lantern Festival. Exhibitors should have returned to their normal pace by then, with orders relaunched after the holiday still in production: get the lead time quoted at the booth confirmed in writing, and check the fair's dates on the official website before any non-refundable purchase.

From our Guangzhou office, we ask every factory we work with for its real closing date and reopening date, and we build your order's timeline on those dates, not on the official holiday. At reopening, we check the pre-production sample and follow the first finished pieces before releasing the volume, then we organise the pre-shipment inspection.

In most cases you pay no fees: you open a file, we negotiate the goods on your behalf, and we take a commission on their ex-factory value.